VV(18): "Papa!"

[Dave Monroe]

"On reaching the intersection with the Boulevard Haussmann, the car turned 
right up rue de la Chaussee d'Antin.  To her left rose the dome of the 
Opera, and tiny Apollo, with his golden lyre ...
   "'Papa!' she screamed."

(V., Ch. 14, Sec. 1, p. 394)

Well, having with Ch. 7 had to navigate 1956 New York, will do what I can 
with 1913 Paris here.  The Boulevard Haussmann, of course, is another 
metonym for modernity, modernization (if not necessarily modernism), among 
other things, here ...

http://www.paris-france.org/CARTO/NOMENCLATURE/4485.nom.html

A "French administrator responsible for the transformation of Paris from its 
ancient character to the one that it still largely preserves," "a town 
planner [who] exerted great influence on cities all over the world," in his 
grandest project (and in the wake of the Paris Commune), Baron Georges 
Eugene Haussmann ...

"... embarked on an enormous program of public works. He cut wide, straight, 
tree-lined avenues through the chaotic mass of small streets of which Paris 
was then composed, connecting the train terminals and making rapid and easy 
movement across the city possible for the first time. (The purpose was 
partly economic, promoting industrialization by enabling goods and services 
to be transported efficiently; partly aesthetic, imposing a measure of 
unifying order and opening up space to allow more light; and partly 
military, eliminating constricted streets where rebel barricades could be 
erected.) ...

"Haussmann's success was favoured also by the autocratic nature of the 
regime under which he served, for this allowed him to raise enormous         
      long-term loans and to use them almost without parliamentary or other 
control."

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=40381&tocid=0

http://www.bartleby.com/65/ha/Haussman.html

http://www.lemonde.fr/imprimer_article/0,6063,155497,00.html

Cf., say, The Ringstrasse in Vienna?  See here ...

Schorske, Carl.  Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture.
   New York: Knopf, 1979 (New York: Vintage, 1980).

But on Haussmann, Paris, et al., see ...

Jordan, David P.  Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors
   of Baron Haussmann.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994
   (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996).

Ross, Kristin.  The Emergence of Social Space:
   Rimbaud and the Paris Commune.  Minneapolis:
   U of Minnesota P, 1994.

Berman, Marshall.  All That Is Solid Melts Into Air:
   The Experience of Modernity.  New York: Simon and Schuster,
   1982 (London: Verso, 1983; New York: Penguin, 1988).

Here's a photo of the rue de la Chaussee d'Antin ("The Causeway of Antin," 
of the Duc d'Antin) ca. 1900 ...

http://isly.free.fr/images/417chausseeantin1.jpg

And the Theatre Nationale de l'Opera in Paris, home of the Paris Opera and 
apparently yet another Haussmann project in some respect ...

http://www.bartleby.com/65/op/Opera.html

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Paris_Opera.html

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/NWaters1/images3.htm

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~cdaae/phantom/poh.htm

http://www.opera-de-paris.fr/

And on "tiny Apollo, with his golden lyre," from "an article which appeared 
in Scribner's Magazine in 1879, a short time after the building was 
completed" ...

"No picture can do justice to the rich colors of the edifice or to the 
harmonious tone resulting from the skilful use of many diverse materials. 
The effect of the frontage is completed by the cupola of the auditorium, 
topped with a cap of bronze sparingly adorned with gilding. Farther on, on a 
level with the towers of Notre-Dame, is the gable end of the roof of the 
stage, a `Pegasus', by M. Lequesne, rising at either end of the roof, and a 
bronze group by M. Millet, representing `Apollo lifting his golden lyre', 
commanding the apex. Apollo, it may here be mentioned, is useful as well as 
ornamental, for his lyre is tipped with a metal point which does duty as a 
lightning-rod, and conducts the fluid to the body and down the nether limbs 
of the god."

http://www.literatureproject.com/phantom-opera/phantom-opera_28.htm

My question is, why does Melanie scream "Papa!" here, seemingly upon seeing 
said diminutive Olympian?  I believe that the taxi driver mistakenly 
believes she is calling out to him when he mutters, "I am not your father."  
Let me know ...


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